Interesting Articles

Smartphones and tablets are ruining childhood. No, wait—scratch that. Television is dumbing down our youth. Actually, hang on. Comic books are corrupting children’s morals. No, hold up. Books are ruining our ability to remember. Wait—back up a bit. We don’t like the way our kids have been painting on cave walls instead of just listening to elders recite stories by the bonfire.

Most of us know better than to use technology for technology’s sake. The Shiny New Tech Syndrome is taking the world by storm, and with the added pressure of finding new ways to improve educational outcomes, we try our best not to be tempted. But there are some things–certain methods, activities, and tools–we still assume can be enhanced with a little computational flair, when really, if we stopped to question ourselves, we’d find them best delivered the old-fashioned way.

Technology and the interactive web provides ample opportunity to gauge student understanding and learning in ways not possible just a few short years ago. Not only can the formative assessment process be engaging, it can also be owned by students. In this post I wish to explore some of those tools that allow teachers to take short temperature reads while involving students in their learning.

From the quite early days of online learning, some instructors have focused heavily on the communication affordances of the Internet. They have based their teaching on the concept of knowledge construction, the gradual building of knowledge mainly through asynchronous online discussion among students and between students and an instructor.

Using technology to educate students isn't always effective, or cost-effective, and doesn't necessarily translate into what is often called "personalized learning," according to a report released Monday.

New Links for Teachers

(Gr. 3-8) - Quickly compare the physical area of countries and/or US states using an transparent overlay interface. Each comparison is accompanied by a sentence stating the area of each country/state (in square km) and a link to that location's entry on Wikipedia.

(Gr. 3-12) - Remove the background from any image. Upload your image, wait a few seconds, then view options for what to do next. BB will attempt auto-burn away the background, giving you 3 possibilities to choose from. Select an image that looks like what you want. You can also choose to use the Touch Up tools to burn OR restore parts of the image. Registration is required (name, email, postal code) to save and download edited images. Site supports authentication via Google.

New Google Links

As we created this list, we realized the topics were extremely diverse with helpful information for nearly every type of Google Apps user. So, take a look at the list and let us know your favorite post of 2014 and don’t forget to take a look at 2014’s Cloud Adoption Trends!

"Today, everyone knows how to text. So, simply ask them to text your Google Voice number. Why Google Voice verses your regular phone number? Because with Google Voice the texts go to your Google Voice account so you have the ability to project the texts for the audience to see."

Chrome extensions are just that, extensions of the Chrome browser. These can be downloaded and enabled through the Chrome Web Store. Hint: it’s important to read the reviews and details of an extension before you enable it. Malware can be attached to extensions. Apps on the other hand, are stand alone applications and run separately, or point to a website. These can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store and are automatically

To add more functionality to your documents, spreadsheets, and forms, you can install add-ons, tools built by third-party developers for Google Docs, Forms, and the new version of Sheets. Once add-ons are installed, you can manage each one individually, and turn them on and off at any time.